We cannot guarantee the life span of a lobster. However, our hearty hard shell lobsters tend to live an average of 24 to 36 hours out of water, and we always pack lively lobsters for shipment (we want you to have a nice dinner, too!). In the rare case a hard shell lobster dies while in transit, you can still cook and eat it within 12 hours of death, as long as it has been kept refrigerated (Lobsters are kept sufficiently cold in our insulated packaging under normal conditions). We enclose a shipment instruction sheet that will give you more information on how to determine if a lobster has spoiled. It is very rare that a lobster we ship you is not edible.